7 ms·
Ask HN: Is this the most quoted quote on HN?
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it"
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=It%20is%20difficult%20to%20get%20a%20man%20to%20understand%20something%2C%20when%20his%20salary%20depends%20on%20his%20not%20understanding%20it&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- metalliqaz 5y agoI have definitely seen that one several times. Here's one that might beat it: "developers, developers" for lots of Balmer quotes.
- metalliqaz 5y agowhy was this downvoted???
- nwsm 5y agoI'd guess the paraphrase of Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=when%20a%20measure%20becomes%20a%20target%2C%20it%20ceases%20to%20be%20a%20good%20measure&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=goodhart%27s%20law&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- smitty1e 5y agoUpton Sinclair: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/
- JosephRedfern 5y ago"...you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem."
- DSingularity 5y agoClassic. Response to the Show HN for drop box right?
- bryceym 5y agoYup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- Ozzie_osman 5y agoGreat one. More broadly is always some version of "couldn't you just do X?" in response to any new product.
- benjaminsuch 5y agoHonestly I ask this question a lot, but without a passive-aggressive intention. I just don't understand everything and I hope the asked person can explain it to me well enough, that I understand why. It's usually really helpful for both.
- colmvp 5y agoI think that's fair as consumers will certainly pose the same question.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago"Couldn't you just put a text file in Dropbox instead of use a todo app / password manager?" "Couldn't you just rent a server instead of Amazon's?"
- bloniac 5y agoThere’s simply no better smack down of the old “I could build this in a weekend” than for the idea to become a multi billion dollar company.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoPicture rsync... as a service! I mean I would've thought that by now the competition for Dropbox would be as aggressive as for todo apps, but I guess it's more complicated due to legal (= content checking) issues.
- losvedir 5y agoProbably need some sort of tf-idf scheme to handle "It depends" or "I don't know" and such, but a pretty common quote is (or was, anyway) "If you're not the customer you're the product". https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22not%20the%20customer%20you%27re%20the%20product%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- onion2k 5y agoBetteridge's Law yields 130 results - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Any%20headline%20that%20ends%20in%20a%20question%20mark%20can%20be%20answered%20by%20the%20word%20no&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- m_a_g 5y ago"correlation does not imply causation" must be a strong contender.
- IshKebab 5y agoIt's a really misleading saying because of the ambiguity of "implies". It's true if you interpret "implies" in the mathematical sense - i.e. "proves". But it's not true if you interpret "implies" in the normal sense - i.e. "suggests". Correlation does not prove causation, but it does suggest it.
- WmyEE0UsWAwC2i 5y agoWhen someone mentions correlation, they imply a linear relation between the correlated variables and a range of values for which that relation is valid. Only when that model is further validated correlation suggests causation.
- IshKebab 5y ago> When someone mentions correlation, they imply a linear relation between the correlated variables and a range of values for which that relation is valid. Yeah that's what correlation means? > Only when that model is further validated correlation suggests causation. No! It suggests causation already. There may not be causation but it definitely suggests it. For example if I find that eating fast food correlates with BMI then there's a pretty clear suggestion that eating fast food causes increased BMI. It might not be the case! But it's clearly very suggestive.
- WmyEE0UsWAwC2i 5y agoI believe I understand your point, but there these options (as I see things): 1. There is little correlation, but there is actual causation (e.g: a cricle) 2. There is correlation, but it turns out to be a fluke later during validation. So, yes. It suggests but in both cases I'd rather continue checkcing
- 5y ago
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago"Bitcoin is the future of currency"
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rsp1984 5y agoHaving seen it play out 1st hand more than once, I gotta say, if it turns out to be the most quoted quote on HN, it is well deserved. I have made many mistakes in my career that I could have easily avoided by just keeping it in mind. It might need a modern-day makeover though as it equally applies to women.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago"Citation needed" which I find annoying and always downvote.
- tester34 5y agoI know that it may be abused, but sometimes people are just curious
- tgv 5y ago"But that phrase doesn't really express curiosity, more unwillingness to accept. Anyway, it isn't a quote." -- Alfred Einstein
- samtho 5y agoI think what turns people off of this is that the phrase “Citation needed” carries an additional connotation of passive-aggression and is not a great way to ask for a source. It’s most notably used (outside of Media Wiki) as a rude way to say, “I challenge you to back this up” at best or “I know this is bullshit” at worst.
- esens 5y ago"Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme." Meanwhile Coinbase goes public for $100B. "The stock market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
- cletus 5y agoThat’s a good quote that I have used many times. Most used? Hard to say. What I find is that popularity is constantly changing. Example: we went through a good year or two of EVERY… SINGLE… TITLE… that ended in a question mark would have someone comment about Betteridge’s Law like what they were saying was somehow witty, insightful or novel when anyone who reads HN has seen it 5684269537 times already. That one was annoying.
- gadders 5y ago"Yeah, but did you win the Putnam?"
- matsemann 5y agoThought of the same, but "only" about 50 I can find: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22win%20the%20Putnam%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
- nlstitch 5y ago"It depends" <- 100% sure its this.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- onion2k 5y agoThat isn't a quote though.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoIt might be. It depends.
- herodoturtle 5y ago"Thanks dang"
- meowster 5y agoIt might be the most-repeated phrase, but I wouldn't call it a quote.
- herodoturtle 5y agoI don't think of it as a quote either. Why did you single out my response amongst all the other similarly tongue-in-cheek replies?
- tonyhb 5y ago"Did you win the putnam?" is also an old, old classic.
- majewsky 5y agoContext: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
- temp0826 5y ago"640k should be enough for anyone" -Abraham Lincoln
- samspenc 5y ago"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet." - Also Abraham Lincoln circa 1864 :)
- BizarroLand 5y ago"I don't care what anyone says, 14 inches is enough for any woman" -Also Abraham Lincoln, just before finding out he was to be president in late 1860
- magnio 5y agoOccam's razor is surprisingly recurrent on here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22never%20attribute%20to%20malice%22&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- tootie 5y agoThat's Hanlon's Razor. Occam's Razor is one that developers seem to constantly forget when they're debugging.
- CapriciousCptl 5y agoThis isn't exactly a quote but fits in the sense of "general ideas mentioned frequently on HN and not frequently elsewhere"-- Gell-Mann Amnesia https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Gell-Mann%20Amnesia&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- tomhoward 5y agoDang commented on this a bit over a year ago: > It's probably time to retire Upton to the Internet Hall of Fame next to Betteridge. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23100306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23100306 If only!
- Causality1 5y agoHow about "Please don't break the site guidelines"
- mhd 5y ago"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."
- segfaultbuserr 5y ago...including Common Lisp. - Robert Morris http://paulgraham.com/quotes.html http://paulgraham.com/quotes.html
- wbharding 5y agoPossible contenders: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately described by stupidity.”
- rrdharan 5y agoThere are several that I find to be painfully recurrent at this point: - hanlon’s razor references - xkcd 927 (competing standards) - you aren’t the user you’re the product Some days it feels like we’ve reached the point where an AI could generate a believable comment thread for a typical front page story…
- bdcravens 5y agoxkcd 538 ($5 wrench) is also up there
- jamil7 5y ago"Do you have a source for that?"
- uptown 5y ago"Not to be pedantic, but..." That's exactly what you mean to be.